Animals: They were here first

Marriage Tips from a Seahorse

Maybe you’re not laying awake at night wondering if the world will be alright when all the seahorses are gone. Thankfully, Project Seahorse is here to make sure we won’t wake up one day to read the headline, “Last of the Seahorses Laid to Rest”.

Why worry about seahorses? Can the world get along without them? After all, when was the last time you thought, “Oh, no, I can’t go on without seahorses!” Your world goes round just fine, or so you think, without a seahorse or two in it. But then, could your world be a better place if you knew more about seahorses?

For example, your world could improve by leaps and bounds if you copied one little daily behavior of seahorses: an early morning dance. Most seahorses are monogamous. Couples begin their day with a promenade through the seagrass and a few pirouettes around the mangrove roots. Maybe this daily dance is the seahorses’ secret to a happy marriage. Whether married or not, why not put on some music and twirl around the kitchen while the coffee’s brewing in the morning. You won’t be able to keep a smile off your face. Only good could come of this.

Aside from great marriage tips, seahorses have other behaviors that could be of benefit to people. They have eyes that can move in all directions. Maybe we can learn from their advanced optical technology and find ways to enhance cameras and other visual tools that we humans use.

The ultimate seahorse behavior which we should definitely look into is their highly innovative approach to pregnancy and childbirth. Why not have the male, obviously the larger and stronger of the species, carry the young and do the hard work of childbirth? Seahorses are highly evolved, indeed! The female deposits her ripe eggs into the male’s pouch where the eggs nestle in for a few weeks in an environment much like a human womb replete with placental nourishment. Birth is quite similar to humans as well. Labor can last for up to twelve or more hours. Why wear out the female with all this when her muscly male can handle it for her!

And one more thing. Females generally roam over twice the distance of males, exploring greater territories. Now that’s interesting. Perhaps seahorses know that a female’s natural intuition will of course, lead them along a path in life that will ensure a more secure future.

Ahh... so much to learn from these rare creatures. Thanks to Project Seahorse for preserving these important contributors to our ecosystem.

You can help Project Seahorse keep going and learn more about their work here.

And there’s a blog post about the importance of listening to people who work as fishers. One of the researchers from Project Seahorse writes about his experience in China learning firsthand from the fishers who can identify species and describe behaviors of seahorses that would astonish those who have only relied on books for absorbing such knowledge. Yet again, an example of why we should respect indigenous people, those who live close to the land have much to teach us.